Google to load mobile websites 4 times faster on slow connections in India

New Delhi: Search engine giant Google Inc will soon load mobile websites four times faster on slow connections in India. The company will be rolling out a new feature to Android devices that will load the data faster on slow 2G connections.

Google had put the new feature on trial for weeks to optimize the display in a lighter and faster format while preserving most of the relevant content. During the initial tests, the new lighter pages loaded four times quicker and consumed 80 percent less data.

The announcement is made weeks after the search engine giant revealed new streamlined search results pages for mobile.

All major companies are targeting India as reports suggest that Internet users in the country are likely to reach up to 550 million in 2018, primarily led by affordable access and improved awareness. The country's internet user base was around 190 million in 2014.

Working on similar lines, Facebook also launched an application-- Lite-- which consumes a small fraction of mobile internet data targeting group of people who live in areas where high speed internet connectivity can be challenging.